How to filter and segment your users

Written by Ruairí Galavan Updated over a week ago

Intercom lets you filter and segment important groups of users, so you can send them targeted messages. For example, you could create a segment of trial users and send them onboarding messages, or you could create a segment of hot prospects, loyal customers or whatever you like.

Here’s how to filter and segment important groups of users:

What is a segment?

A segment is a group of your users defined by rules (or filters) that you set. Users are automatically added to the segment every time the user updates to match those rules.

We recommend creating a segment for every key group of users you'd like to send a message to - for example, trial users or users who have yet to take action.

Create a segment

Use filters to identify groups of interest

To create a segment, first you’ll need to set the filters on the left-hand side of your user list. For example, if you want to create a segment of trial users and your trial is 30 days long, just filter for ‘Signed up less than 30 days ago.’

Then click ‘Save Segment’ and give your segment a name (something easy to remember, like 'Trial users'). Your new segment will appear in the drop-down menu in your user list.

Important: You can be as exact as you like and combine as many filters as you need to when creating a segment.

Send targeted auto messages

From here you can message these users by clicking the message drop-down on top of the user list, and selecting either a manual or auto message. One of the most powerful features of Intercom is the ability to create targeted auto messages based on your filters and segments.

Once you put your auto message live, these customers and every customer who subsequently meets these criteria will get the message (just once).

Note: If you select a manual message, this message will only send once to the filtered list of users.

Predefined segments

Intercom comes with three predefined segments, and you’ll see these at the top of your user list:

New: Anyone who has signed up in the last 24 hours.

Active: Anyone who has been active in the last 30 days (this is the most relevant segment as it really informs you as to who is actually using your product).

Useful segments to create

The segments you create should be specific to your product. Here are some ideas to get you started:

Pro-plan customers- These are your highest paying users or those on your most expensive plan. You should prioritize this group and ensure they receive your best possible service.

Trial users - These are the people you need to make sure convert. You’ll want to give them a warm welcome and show them how to make the most of your features. Your filters for this segment might be something like: ‘Signed up less than 14 days ago’ and ‘Plan is free trial.'

Hot prospects - These are prospects who are active and are approaching a barrier. For example, if you’re a photo sharing app you can create a segment for everyone who has more than 80 photos uploaded of a possible 100 allowed. Your filters for this segment might be something like: ‘Plan is starter’ and ‘Uploaded photos more than 80/100.'

Loyal customers - You might want to create a list of loyal users for beta testing your new features. Or maybe you want to reward these users with a thank you gift. Your filters here might be: ‘Signed up more than 365 days ago.'

No action taken - You could create a segment of users who have yet to download your mobile app. Then you can give them a little nudge and remind them how to download it and why they should. Your filters here might be: ‘Downloaded mobile app is false.'

Important: You can add users and companies to as many segments as you like. For example, a user might belong to both your ‘Trial users’ and ‘Hot prospects’ segments.

How segments get automatically updated

We update your users' segments each time they log into your app.

If you combine multiple filters in segments you may get unpredictable results due to the scheduled nature of daily updates.

If you use a recently-created segment in a filter, you’ll see incomplete search results until we finish generating the segment. Check back later to see the complete results.

Search for segments

To see who belongs to a segment, just select it from the top of the user list.

Or you can filter the user list to recall users that belong to a certain segment, like this:

How to edit or delete a segment

To edit a segment, just click on a segment above the user or company list. The filters for that segment will appear on the left, and you can edit it from there.

You can also delete a segment in your app settings. Just visit 'People Segments' or 'Company Segments and select the x icon next to the segment you’d like to delete.

Note: You need to be an admin with full permissions to be able to edit and delete segments.